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VEECEE Community gathers at Google Amsterdam to explore data-driven venture capital.

On Thursday, September 5, 2024, members of the VEECEE community gathered at Google’s Amsterdam office for a compelling evening focused on the rise of data-driven venture capital.

The event, organized by VEECEE, a network dedicated to connecting European venture capitalists, was hosted in partnership with Google Cloud, Houthoff, and re:cap. The evening brought together VC professionals eager to explore how data and AI are transforming the industry.

Opening Remarks: VEECEE’s Mission

The event began with a warm welcome from Laura de Munck, Young M&A and VC Community Manager at Sijthoff Media, and Viktoria Oushatova from Prime Ventures, a member of VEECEE’s advisory board.

They introduced VEECEE’s mission – to create meaningful connections among European venture capitalists and support the local startup ecosystem. While networking at tech events is common, VEECEE provides more structured and focused gatherings to foster deeper professional relationships and share knowledge across the VC community.

VEECEE organizes events in cities such as Amsterdam, London, and Berlin, covering topics from pitching to business models. The aim is not only to bring VCs together but also to provide valuable insights that help them thrive in an increasingly complex investment landscape.

The Roundtable: Data-Driven VC in Practice

Before the main event, a roundtable discussion took place, centred on data-driven venture capital. The conversation revealed three critical insights about integrating data into VC decision-making:

1) Data enhances decisions but doesn’t replace the human touch: While AI and data-driven tools can automate tasks and provide valuable insights, relationship-building and human judgement remain key to making successful deals.

2) Current tools are helpful but not fully mature: Tools like PitchBook and Specter assist in financial analysis and portfolio management, but many are still underdeveloped or expensive, particularly for smaller VC firms.

3) Balancing data and human expertise is the future: The most successful VCs will be those who combine the efficiency of data with social intelligence and empathy. Data-driven practices will become standard, but personal connections will continue to set top-performing VCs apart.

Expert Talks: Practical Insights from the Field

The plenary session kicked off with an introduction by Raphael Neuhaus of Google Cloud, who highlighted Google Cloud’s role in powering successful companies like Spotify. He explained how VEECEE members could benefit from Google Cloud’s resources, including cloud credits for portfolio companies.

The first expert, Mustafa Torun, Senior Data Scientist at Invest-NL, took the stage to explain how his team at the impact investor integrates data to guide investment decisions.

Torun’s data strategy for Invest-NL revolves around scraping data of millions of start-ups and translating that data into actionable insights. The market information provided by the data team is the input for Invest-NL to base decisions on where to deploy capital to reach the desired impact. Facilitating the energy transition and creating a carbon neutral economy is the desired outcome. Of course, while also realizing a healthy financial return.

All the data needs of the business can be cut in four, Toron explained:

  • Ecosystem Intelligence: Monitoring, analyzing and predicting ecosystem dynamics.
  • Sourcing and Screening: Finding and selecting the right companies, deals, funds, experts, and events.
  • Due Diligence: Supporting due diligence activities by decision making and automation.
  • Assessment of strategy, impact, investments, portfolio, decisions and activities.

The data analytics team at Invest-NL is close to creating the ultimate tool for the impact investor. It is a relationship tool that tracks start-ups, funding needs, relationships between companies and institutions and a lot more. A layer of intelligence also guides decision making and actions. For example, what is the best way to reach out to a company? The system helps the investors understand the funding needs of all the players in the ecosystem and how Invest-NL can achieve the most impact.

To get an as complete picture of the ecosystem as possible, the data of several of the main investor databases is combined. Invest-NL now gets a clear picture of the most promising deep tech companies out there.

He concluded with key ‘do’s and don’ts’ for any VC looking to adopt a data-driven approach:

Do’s

  • Know where to start: with a quick win problem.
  • Measure your success.
  • Find key persons, advocates in the organisation.
  • Embrace the challenge: It is a longing and ongoing effort.
  • Create a data strategy!

Don’ts

  • Don’t isolate from business strategy.
  • Don’t hire a data analyst first.
  • Don’t sacrifice reliability to velocity (early).
  • Don’t forget: culture eats strategy.

Curiosity VC: The Power of AI and Automation

The second speaker, Loïc Struyvelt, Investment Associate at Curiosity VC, shared his journey of integrating AI into their workflows. Curiosity VC is a fund active in seed and pre-seed rounds in the Benelux, the Nordics, and the Baltics.

Around two years ago, he and his colleagues decided to seriously start integrating data and AI in their workflows. Loïc recited the story of David and Goliath. The small David won the fight against the behemoth Goliath because he was smarter and used the right tool for the job (a sling and stone). Against their ‘battle’ against ‘tier 1-funds’, Curiosity VC intends to employ a similar strategy.

Two years ago, Curiosity had some significant challenges in their processes. Their technology stack had become a landfill of news articles and research papers (that nobody would read). Their pitch decks were not uploaded in Google Cloud. And they were manually drafting outreach messages. Also, there was no single source of truth. “We were too smart to do all this manual work”, said Loïc. It was time for a change.

They first mapped their greatest pain points (tasks they really hated doing) and low hanging fruit (the greatest inefficiencies). They started automating everything they could automate. “If automation can save you a few minutes per day, over the long run they add up to a lot of minutes”, explained Loïc.

Their next step was scraping all their information sources about the sort of companies they would potentially want to invest in. Their CRM really had to become their single source of truth, so they started collecting data and interactions in an automated way as much as possible. Thereby they import key data from different sources to get as complete a database as possible.

The final step was the creation of their own AI analyst, called Fleur. She sends alerts, drafts emails, and provides the investors with benchmark data. Loïc is happy because he can now do what VC investing is supposed to be all about: Managing relationships and networking.

The second speaker also shared some key takeaways from his journey to become a more data-driven and AI-driven VC-investor:

  • Identify key pain points and inefficiencies and establish clear goals for AI and data-driven projects.
  • Start small by identifying quick wins and begin experimenting with tools to accelerate your learning curve.
  • Build Vs. Buy: know when to develop in-house versus using existing solutions. If you build something, you must also be prepared to maintain it.
  • Data quality and management are crucial: either you do it right or not at all.

A Lively Q&A and Networking

The presentations were followed by an engaging Q&A session, with attendees eager to dive deeper into the implications of data and AI on the venture capital industry. The event wrapped up with excellent drinks and bites provided by Google, where the conversation continued well into the evening as VCs connected and exchanged ideas.

Looking Ahead

The VEECEE community left with fresh insights and practical takeaways on how data-driven practices can enhance their work without losing the vital human connection that makes venture capital unique. The next VEECEE event is scheduled for November 27 at Capital C in Amsterdam, promising another opportunity for European VCs to learn, connect, and grow.